Estuary: A Confluence of Art & Poetry
Published by Moon and Mountain, 2012

Art Editor: Harriette Lawler
Poetry Editor: Agnes Marton

“An estuary is that part of the mouth or lower course of a river in which the river’s current meets the sea’s tide. An abundance of nutrient-rich food is found in this biome. Estuarine environments are among the most productive on earth, creating habitats for 1000s of species to live, feed, and reproduce. 26 artists and 57 poets from around the world have come together in this 120 page, full color book to create an estuary of images and words, art and poetry flowing together.”

On May 29, "Estuary" was voted the, 'Best Mixed Anthology,' for the, "Saboteur 2013 Award," in that category. Agnes Marton was in attendance to represent
us at the awards event, which was held at the London Book Club.

Links about the award:
http://sabotagereviews.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sabotage-Reviews/120076508062100?ref=ts&fref=ts

The basic tenet of Estuary is a synecdoche for the arts, a confluence, convergence or meeting point of art work and poetry. The editors point this out in the brief introduction, taking pains to explain literally what an estuary is, the meeting points of the river and the sea. This ‘explanation’ sets the trend for the metaphorical meaning of the texts and the art work. The fusion of art work and poetry is not uncommon these days, with literay zines using such aesthetic compulsions effectively and if one may say so, profitably. However, it is unusual to see it achieved as thoughtfully as is the case here, with art and poetry given the same amount of respect and, through their placement side by side on the page, forcing the viewer to find echoes of each other in the pieces.

The poems in this anthology are highly sensory, tainted by a deep coloration and sensuousness that brings out nuances between the real and the ideal, the make belief or the mythic, as contrasted with the real. There is a recurring imagistic use of shores, water, mirages, washing, etc in the poems which bind them into a thematic unity. The poems ‘Sand Dollar’, ‘From the Country, Sonnets from the Sea 18’etc typify such recurrent symbols, once again holding on to the estuary theme even if it be in a loose manner.

In line with the theme, a number of poems re-employ the anthology’s title, beginning with the opening poem, Kathleen Jones’ ‘The Estuary’, in which she explores the estuary as a preserver of memory, hoping her footprints will ‘last a few millennia / slowly fossilising / into bedrock’. However, Jones’ estuary is no peaceful or picturesque scene, its sludge is ‘deceitful’, ‘A boat has been drowned / in it’, while the sea is ‘too withdrawn / for conversation’.

In contrast, one of the end poems by Aad de Gids entitled: ‘Estuary Barcode Scanning’ takes a different approach, with a prose poem: ‘estuary // as if the fingers are forked within each other two flows of energy meeting a sea and a river meet’. It’s a dense poem, storing, not unlike a barcode itself, a wealth of information. Facing it is Hego Goevert’s artwork ‘Deus Ex Machina I’, which has a slight steampunk aesthetic with its gold pattern (mimicking wiring), and a fragility emphasized by the erasure of the design. Where de Gids’ work may be deemed alienating, Goevert’s complexity invites further observation, throwing the words in the shadows.

Elsewhere, the pairing of artist and poet seems like a more comfortable synthesis. Pippa Little’s ‘Zones of Convergence’ asks:

‘What washes up on different shores?
You walk with your camera, I walk with mine:
Orange globes, nets and lines, hasps, rusted pulleys,’

Little’s list of detritus has its shining moments, ‘the sea for all its muscle cannot swallow’ the trash it has been given. To which, Mark Erikson’s ‘Dusted Beans and Broken Beams’, shows the same interest in casting the lens of observation on the minutiae of the everyday. Little writes ‘our seas are strange to one another’, and yet here, artwork and writing collide in harmony.

Throughout the art work there are many such examples of finely tuned emotions in consonance with the jugglery of poetry. These pairings are the highlight of the book as they lead the poet to seek the hidden rationale for both poetry and painting. It is exactly this dialectic which gives the book its finely tuned talent of merging poetry and illusory truths with the graphics of art whether it is photography and digital art, or painting in acrylic or for that matter ink and paper. The range of the work is astonishing to view, like a riot of colours. One stand-out, Katerina Dramitinou’s ‘You Have no Idea How Early they Wake Up’, which uses photography and digital art, is an astonishing play of inner sensibilities contrasting with empirical realities of nature.

Estuary is a narrative of poems; I call them narratives beause each individual poem tells a story of the self in relation to the outside world. There is a turning inwards in some of the poems, a kind of introspection after the speaker detaches himself/herself from the subject matter. In most cases, there is an emotional distancing from the subject matter that is the object and the narrator, speaker or ‘listener’. Directness is a hallmark here but, at the end of most of the poems, there is a feeling of fogginess, the poet leads the way and the reader is trapped in a cycle of doubts. However, inaccessibility in these poems work to their advantage because at the end of each poem is a beautiful swirling mist, something you would love to see but something also that you cannot penetrate further. Does poetry need such penetration or incision? Reading these poems makes me ask this question and also the eternal question, what are ‘meanings’ in poetry? These poems all have layered structures and the edifice as a whole is monumental. Likewise, the paintings are abstract if not abstruse, but their very texture is finely knit and aesthetically very compact.

Peeling these layers of both poetry and painting has been for me, an exciting and stimulating experience.

I captured my first photographic image at the age of five (1957). In 1971, I partnershiped up with Architectural Photographer, Douglas E. Tomlinson. Doug and I worked together as I began to become more of a color photographer - being Doug was colorblind. By 1975, I was on my own and exploring the landscape and traveling solo as far as my wheels could go (Mexico & Canada). I began exhibiting Landscapes in Dallas, Texas USA, about 1979. My first exhibitions were at the 'Old' "Allen Street Gallery." Soon I was picked up by Jim Harmon at the, "Turtle Creek Gallery," and later, I found representation with Ruth Wiseman and her, "Ruth Wiseman Gallery," - all in, “Big 'D.'” Also, I was curated into exhibitions at the, "Univ. of Texas at San Antonio," "Heard Museum," in Mckinney, several shows with, "The Houston Center for Photography (HCP)," a permanent exhibit at, "Strictly Tabu," (all in Texas), and up at the, "Crescent Gallery," Louisville, Kentucky. During this period I was also traveling Eastern and Western Europe (before the wall was torn down, and the following reunification), and South America. I have shown art in numerous other group and solo shows. I have served as juror and curator for exhibitions of other artist's works. I have exhibited collaborational art at the, "Dallas McKinney Avenue Contemporary (MAC)," and have exhibited three times in Guadalajara - including a solo photography exhibition of landscapes of the Galapagos Islands at the, "National Museum of Mexico (Hospicio Cabanas)," and two exhibitions at the, "Galiera Azul" (also in Guadalajara). I have exhibited on the East Coast, in New York, at the, "Williamsburg Art Historical Center," in Brooklyn, and my, "Freedom Art(*)" work was exhibited in the opening of a traveling show - beginning at the, "Mount Beacon Fine Arts Gallery," in Beacon, New York, and later, the 'Galley Pages' of the, "Freedom Art" book, were exhibited in a group show by curator, 'Carla Goldberg,' at the, "Karpeles Museum," in Newburgh, New York. On the west Coast, In 2009, I exhibited 2 & 3-D works in an exhibition in San Francisco, California, titled: "Corrections," at the, "SomArts Cultural Center." My most reccent exhibitions showed at the prestigious, "Camera Obscura Gallery," - known as one of the world’s oldest photography galleries where I recieved a, 'Cash Award,' for one of my works. presently, I am showing work selected by curator by James Drake, for the 17th annual, "TEXAS NATIONAL 2011 Exhibition," April 9 - May 21, 2011, at The Cole Art Center and the Ledbetter Gallery in - The Old Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas. The 17th annual TEXAS NATIONAL is sponsered by Stephen F. Austin State University.

(*) The book, "Freedom & Art," is available through Blurb, and through the official website of Amnesty USA.

At the end of 2009, I created a world-wide Diptych Project with many artists. The thrust of the idea was to create groups of 4 artists - half of each group's members creating what they could imagine being the first piece of a diptych. They they passed their art work to another artist. That artist responded to the work with the closing second work of the diptych. This artist then began their first piece of a new diptych and passed it along to another, different artist, and the process was repeated. So far, we have 10 artists and 24 artworks - making one full dozen Diptych. There are other artist pairs coming in late to add to the ongoing tally. You can look the these results in an electronic exhibition now being shown at www.ArtBrainstorming.com. This work comes from a private group of 29 world-wide artists working once from the original Private Artist Group, #artmesh (now defunct) - which was based in Berlin, Germany (which also spawn the international 'Micra Art' group). Please visit our ABS website: which also has opened more shows titled; "Dichotomy," "The 'May' Show," "Feeling Soulful," "Summer Heat," and the, "Fall Open Show.ABS has eight to ten shows annually, and is a great place to see a varity top-notch international artists...ArtBrainStorming.comallows you to follow the careers of dozens of my artist-friends from around the world!

Opening reception for the artists, Friday, December 10, 5:00 to 9:00 PM.

The Art of Photography Today 2

The Camera Obscura Gallery presents the second annual fine art photography competition, The Art of Photography Today 2. The exhibition runs from December 10, 2010 through February 5, 2011, with an artist and public reception from 5 to 9 PM on Friday, December 10.

The Camera Obscura Gallery’s 2010 Call for Entries brought to our attention a large number of talented artists from around the world. 231 photographers from six countries participated, entering 923 images in four categories: Abstract & Experimental, Landscape & Nature, People, and Urban & Architecture.

The art of photography has seen tremendous change in the last few decades. The increasing presence of digital imaging has added new dimension to creative exploration and technical excellence. Entrants to, The Art Of Photography Today 2, ranged from novice to pro creating a broad spectrum of distinctive work. The jurors, Hal Gould and Loretta Young-Gautier, selected 96 photographs (3 images by Brad Michael Moore) from 81 artists from 11 different US states to represent this diverse variety of technique and style. The exhibition selection includes black & white, and color images, using both experimental and traditional photographic methodology, including three-dimensional compositions. The Camera Obscura Gallery will present cash awards and certificates of merit at the opening reception on December 10.

Juror & Director, Hal Gould, recently received the prestigious Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Award for Arts and Humanities for his decades-long and tireless crusade to promote the art of photography.

The Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Annual Awards honor individuals making significant and unique contributions in the fields of Arts and Culture, Community Service, and Science and Medicine. The Annual Awards Program was established in 1984 in recognition of Charles Stanton's desire to honor individuals who are advancing excellence in the Foundation's major areas of interest. Each year, the Foundation Trustees recognize outstanding Coloradans with the dual goals of bringing acclaim to their efforts and motivating others to greater accomplishments on behalf of Colorado and its citizens.

Sometimes referred to as "Colorado's Nobel Prizes," the Annual Awards have honored prominent Coloradans for excellence in a broad range of pursuits. Honorees represent excellence in such fields as artistic direction, civic engagement, university leadership, historic preservation, biomedical research, chemistry and physics. Several honorees have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize, many have served as mentors to others, and most have continued to make significant contributions for years following receipt of the Foundation award.

The award was bestowed at a gala luncheon ceremony on May 13, 2010. In addition to honoring Hal Gould, the award brought considerable recognition and credibility to photogra phy as a collectible medium for artistic expression. For more information about the Annual Awards Program and the other honorees, visit www.bonfils-stantonfoundation.org.

A new Fine Artist Group has evolved into the SiteWelder Family named, "ArtBrainStorming." Once rooted in the German private arts organization, #artmesh, http://www.ArtBrainStorming.com began as a small group of loosely knitted artists of fine art, from across the world, who then became a small group of their own. Their first project together - titled, "Diptych Duets," was reason enough to begin a public website so that our public friends could also share in it and our upcoming projects.

For the project - each artist created one half of a diptych and passed it on to another artist to complete. At the same time - a third artist also created a first half of a presumed diptych, and passed it on to another artist who's first work went to another artist. Point being, is that every diptych would be comprised of

unique artist combinations where everyone involved did both a first, and second half of a diptych - and no diptych contained the same two artist's works.

As artists, we often express our feelings and thoughts concerning injustices, abuses of power, good and evil, or just the way we would like the Earth to be. Even if it’s only our own little corner of the world or in our own heart and soul. Making corrections, righting wrongs. This exhibit is dedicated to that theme. An example of a “wrong” could be a polluted landscape, political or governmental abuses, ignorance and lies, war scene or a disaster. An example of a “right” (a correction) could represent or express any situation that has been corrected. The work can be of any style or media: representational, abstract or conceptual.

Corrections ExhibitThe exhibit will also include visitor participation. Attendees can write down something that they feel needs correcting. Such as: abuses of any kind, overpopulation, corporate greed, political corruption, or whatever one wishes - global, national, local, or personal. They could then feed this Wrong into a paper shredder that would be set up in the gallery. (Something will be posted stating that only Wrongs that are NOT motivated by anger, hatred, bigotry/intolerance, or jealousy/envy should be fed into this shredder.)

We will also have a secondary shredder to receive petty or selfish concerns – just so people can get these things “off their chest” or just to get rid of the negative emotions that they are causing a person to harbor. At the end of the opening reception, our "court jester" will read aloud some of the Wrongs to be righted. In olden days, the king's court jester was the only one who could present truths in public before the king - without losing his head.

Summary

As artists, we can’t raise money the way musicians can, but we can raise awareness and focus. This one exhibit won't change the world, but at least we artists can stand together and hopefully get some attention paid to what we'd like to see corrected. The state of the world these days often seems so grim and hopeless, terribly out of balance, in desperate need of some "magic." Some Magic... and some Truth.

On October 2nd, 2008, the Mirca Art Group, an international coalition of professional artists, will release their landmark collaborative effort, a book entitled Freedom and Art, to the public. The book features 74 works of art, each accompanied by a short statement about the synergy of freedom and art in our world, and is being sold to raise funds in support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a key political figure who has been under house arrest in Myanmar (formerly Burma) for the past 18 years over her bid for political freedom. Several artists who have Premiere Portfolios with absolutearts.com will be participating in the book: Leo Evans, Doug Kinsey, Don Murphy, Brad Michael Moore, Cassandra Gordon-Harris, Luise Andersen and Carla Goldberg, who compiled the information and created the publication.

The book will be released to the public initially through an event called “Set a Book Free” on Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday, October 2nd when all artists featured within the pages of the book will place a copy donated by Internet-based publishing site Blurb.com in a public location to raise interest. The project was born out of artmesh, a social media website that allows artists to network via forums and groups, similar to the way users interact on social mega-site Facebook.com. Swedish founder Stefan Tunedal created the Mirca Art Group as a private forum within artmesh that would focus on fostering art-orientated discussions in an open, tolerant atmosphere. The Mirca Art group eventually grew to include nearly 250 artists from six continents and over thirty countries. Aung San Suu Kyi and her battle for freedom – a passion of Tunedal’s – became a rallying cause for the group and is the inspiration for the book.

According to Carla Goldberg, US-based coordinator and senior editor for Freedom & Art, the book was meant to harness the energy and passion of the artists for Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi into an actionable strategy to aid in her release. On the effort to work with artists from around the world, Carla says, “The project has brought our group together in a whole new way. There has been a lot of wonderful back-and-forth on message boards and everyone has been willing to offer their individual talents where needed.” On the effort to assemble the work of the artists together, she says, "It has been like assembling a beautiful puzzle...each piece is unique and, in the end, everything has fit together to create a complete work of art." After its initial release to the public in October the book will be available for sale through the official website of Amnesty International and Amazon.com. All proceeds from the sale of the book Freedom & Art will be donated to Amnesty International to support efforts being made on behalf of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's . A traveling exhibit featuring a selection of the art published in the book is also planned. It will open February 14, 2009, at the Mount Beacon Fine Arts Gallery in Beacon, NY. “I wanted to see what I can do from this safe studio in Stockholm where it would be impossible to even think of imprisoning an elected (official)," says Tunedal when asked about his passion for the plight Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. “A woman like her should not be treated like this. She has the right to be free," adds Hungarian artist Krisztina Asztalos, writing from the other side of Europe. "Aung San Suu Kyi's efforts...are an inspiration for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation." By working together in the spirit of global collaboration, these artists have become a united voice of hope and pierced places where freedom has failed with the liberating power of artistic expression.

Mirca Art Group based out of Skogås, Sweden is pleased to announce the publication of its first and long awaited book: "Freedom and Art". A collaborative work of 78 international artists, this book deals with the thoughts of the
participants on Freedom along with their art, inspired by that gift. Group founder Stefan Tunedal, wanted this book to be a true act of freedom. Thus each participating artist will purchase the book and “set it free” in a public place!
Four artists who will be participating in the book: Brad Michael Moore, Cassandra Gordon-Harris, Luise Andersen and Carla Goldberg, who compiled the information and created the publication.

Amnesty International is sponsoring the book on its website, as proceeds from the sale will be donated to that organization, keeping true the intent of this collaboration. The book will be released for sale to the public on September 6, 2008- International Read a Book Day - and can be obtained from the bookstore at http://www.blurb.com

The Voice of Art in a Battle for Freedom represents International artists create book in support of key political figure. On October 2nd, 2008, the Mirca Art Group, an international coalition of professional artists, will release their landmark collaborative effort, a book entitled Freedom & Art, to the public. The book features 74 works of art, each accompanied by a short statement about the synergy of freedom and art in our world, and is being sold to raise funds in support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a key political figure who has been under house arrest in Myanmar (formerly Burma) for the past 18 years over her bid for political freedom.

The book will be released to the public initially through an event called “Set a Book Free” on Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday, October 2nd when all artists featured within the pages of the book will place a copy donated by Internet-based publishing site Blurb.com in a public location to raise interest.
The project was born out of artmesh, a social media website that allows artists to network via forums and groups, similar to the way users interact on social mega-site Facebook.com. Swedish founder Stefan Tunedal created the Mirca Art Group as a private forum within artmesh that would focus on fostering art-orientated discussions in an open, tolerant atmosphere. The Mirca Art group eventually grew to include nearly 250 artists from six continents and over thirty countries. Aung San Suu Kyi and her battle for freedom – a passion of Tunedal’s – became a rallying cause for the group and is the inspiration for the book.

According to Carla Goldberg, US-based coordinator and senior editor for Freedom & Art, the book was meant to harness the energy and passion of the artists for Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi into an actionable
strategy to aid in her release. On the effort to work with artists from around the world, Carla says, “The project has brought our group together in a whole new way. There has been a lot of wonderful back-and-forth on message boards and everyone has been willing to offer their individual talents where needed.” On the effort to assemble the work of the artists together, she says, "It has been like assembling a beautiful puzzle...each piece is unique and, in the end, everything has fit together to create a complete work of art."

After its initial release to the public in October the book will be available for sale through the official website of Amnesty International and Amazon.com. All proceeds from the sale of the book Freedom & Art will be donated to Amnesty International to support efforts being made on behalf of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's . A traveling exhibit featuring a selection of the art published in the book is also planned. It will open February 14, 2009, at the Mount Beacon Fine Arts Gallery in Beacon, NY.
“I wanted to see what I can do from this safe studio in Stockholm where it would be impossible to even think of imprisoning an elected (official)," says Tunedal when asked about his passion for the plight Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. “A woman like her should not be treated like this. She has the right to be free," adds Hungarian artist Krisztina Asztalos, writing from the other side of Europe. "Aung San Suu Kyi's efforts...are an inspiration for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation."
By working together in the spirit of global collaboration, these artists have become a united voice of hope and pierced places where freedom has failed with the liberating power of artistic expression.

absolutearts.com artists, Ellen Jantzen and Brad Michael Moore, will exhibit work beginning Saturday, September 29th and continuing through November 4th, 2007 in the exhibition titled: "Sun Pictures to MegaPixels: Archaic Processes to Alternative Realities (Pre-and Post-Modernist Photography)," at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, 135 Broadway, Brooklyn, New York 11211. Opening is 4 to 6 pm September 29,2007 and, also, there will be a Costume Ball for the Opening Night's festivities - along with a special performance - "Photonic Sculptural Movement."

Statement by Joel Simpson, Curator

"Why put archaic process photography together with digital photography in the same show? It's because they each subvert one of the central tenants of photographic modernism: the transparency of the medium, and the truthfulness of the image. Archaic process photographers, with their chemical signatures, compromise transparency, while digital process photographers, as they elaborate the plausible impossibilities of their vision, abandon literal veracity.

"This makes archaic process photography as a kind of expressionism: the visibility of the chemical medium imparts an emotional perspective to the subject. Digital process photographers, on the other hand, drawing their inspiration from the imaginative freedom of the surrealists (as do commercial photographers, though in a more circumscribed way), use their freedom to create fantasy worlds, dreamscapes, as extravagant as those of Dali, Ernst, or Magritte. Both are represented masterfully and with great originality in the show." - Joel Simpson

Joel Simpson has been photographing since 1960 through careers in academia (teaching college English, French and Italian) and jazz piano. He produced the Dick Hyman Century of Jazz Piano CD-ROM in 1999, while living in New Orleans. After returning to the New York area in 2000, he began writing art criticism and showing his fine art photography in area galleries beginning in 2002. The Sun Pictures to Mega-Pixels show was conceived following the success of Brave Destiny a major exhibition of surrealist art at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in 2003. Simpson began working on the show in 2004. After many bureaucratic delays and by virtue of the persistence of the small community of photographic artists in the show, it is finally coming to fruition.

Brad Michael Moore states about his 'MultiPlexing' work:
My "MultiPlexing," represents a process of mirroring and unfolding an image to observe its hidden symmetrical qualities. I apply the process to a wide range of subjects, transforming simpler random forms them into new structures of balance and symmetry, revealing new meanings. Sometimes I destabilize the process via additive visual notions that slightly skew the image equilibrium. I began practicing the MultiPlexing art form piecemeal (by the panel) in the darkroom - a very laborious exercise. Digital process makes things much easier....

Archaic process photography-the early photographic methods developed in the 19th Century-and digital process photography-the largely filmless creation of real-seeming but often highly imaginative and impossible images through computer programs-may seem to be unlikely partners in an exhibition. The only thing they seem to have in common is their opposition to photographic modernism, what most people think of as photography's mainstream. As it became the standard photographic process in the 1920s and reigning virtually unchallenged into the 1960s (despite marginalized though prophetic experimentation in the hands of the surrealists), it was based on two fundamental principles that defined it as its own graphic medium, utterly different from all others: the (mechanical) capturing process was deemed to be transparent (excepting the absence of color in black and white photography), and the subject matter was understood to be actual, really out there. If something was a "photograph" (and not a drawing, painting or "artist's conception") then this testified to its authenticity.

Jerry Uelsmann (b. 1934), one of the contemporary pioneers in visionary photography, though working entirely in the chemical darkroom, points out in his interview with Paul Karabinis quoted on his page in this catalogue (and available in full at www.uelsmann.net), that thirty years ago this modernist conception of photography was so entrenched that his combinatory montages were dismissed (in New York) as not "true" photographs! Of course, I can still hear that old sense of the word photograph in my head (as in "Is it a drawing or is it a photograph?"). A photograph was something that represented true reality, full stop. A photographer was a technician responsible for the accurate conveyance of that reality through the photographic medium. This aesthetic concept hatched endless debates over whether photography was an art or merely a craft, a debate which finally began to fade only in the late Sixties when vintage photographs began commanding painting-like prices on the art market.

Very soon after that, in the 1970s, interest began to grow in the revival of the archaic methods of photographic capture. Please refer to Mark Osterman and France Scully-Osterman's excellent historical essay, on this subject, "Photohumanism," included on this disk. Generally speaking-since there are so many of these processes-the chemistry added elements of mood, nuance and randomness of design (especially along the edges), that offered strong aesthetic appeal. In addition, the works were unique, monoprints, so could be sold for much more than easily reproducible prints (see also Lyle Rexer's definitive study Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde: the New Wave in Old Processes [New York: Abrams, 2002]). Twenty years later came the digital revolution, which placed literal image-making at the disposal of virtually everyone (video now, too), while photographic image manipulation became an artistic medium on a par with illustration and even fine art, as so many artists in this show illustrate. At this point the pairing of archaic process with digital process might make more sense: each subverts a basic tenet of photographic modernism. Archaic process photographers, with their chemical signatures, compromise transparency, while digital process photographers, as they elaborate the plausible impossibilities of their vision, abandon literal veracity.

And what emerged to take their place? Emotion and visionary imagination. In this sense, archaic process photography is a kind of photographic expressionism: the visibility of the chemical medium imparts an emotional perspective to the subject. Digital process photographers, on the other hand, drawing their inspiration from the imaginative freedom of the surrealists (as do commercial photographers, though in a more circumscribed way), use their freedom to create fantasy worlds, dreamscapes, as extravagant as those of Dalì, Ernst or Magritte. The more skillfully this is done the more believable it is. Just look at Steven Ochs' three-dimensional vertiginous interiors, or Steve Danzig's operatic scenes of Dark Eros, where naked grotesques cavort among ominous baroque edifices. Uelsmann, also in the show, led the way: we now accept the visual communication of a composite photograph that doesn't hide its artifice, such as in Steven Marc's highly symbolic studies in his Underground Railroad series. In addition to artist working within these clear categories, we have been fortunate to be able to show artists who present their images in novel ways, ways that deepen or extend the power of the images themselves. We have also included several installations that examine fundamental concepts such as seeing and time....

"Sun Pictures to Mega-Pixels" shows at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn, New York 2007-09-29 until 2007-11-04.